Appetite magazine #43 – June-July 2017

Burning question of the day, dear reader – have you ever eaten jam pennies? If so, either your surname is Windsor or you are just impossibly posh, for jam pennies are tiny raspberry jam sandwiches cut into circles the size of a penny, which the Queen has with her afternoon tea.

HM also starts her day with a cup of Earl Grey (no milk or sugar) and biscuits. Biscuits! Before breakfast. How is that a thing? Then for breakfast, she famously has cereal served in Tupperware, which she insists on to keep her Bran Flakes fresh. Like her late mother, she has a gin and Dubonnet before a light lunch of grilled fish and vegetables, then the aforementioned afternoon tea of jam pennies, finger sandwiches, scones and Rich Tea biscuits (yes really!). Dinner is fillets of beef or venison, pheasant or salmon, and she has a glass of champagne every evening.

All this is revealed by Darren McGrady, who cooked for the royal family for 15 years and is now making a tidy living on the back of it in the United States. He’s also let slip – wait for it – that the Queen doesn’t eat pasta, potatoes or garlic. A random selection, and also a meal in itself (preferably with a lot of butter). The pasta and garlic bit does not surprise (people in their 90s generally don’t do ‘foreign’), but potatoes? Really?

Wor Liz also likes chocolate biscuit cake so much that it travels with her all over the country, having a small slice each day until it’s gone and a new one appears the next day, just like magic. She also enjoys a daily banana, which she eats as I do – cut lengthwise and then into slices to eat with a fork – which no-one is allowed to tell me is weird anymore.

About

appetite magazine is dedicated to the taste of the North East of England.
Food and drink, grown here, made here, enjoyed here by the appetite team and our readers.
The magazine is published eight times a year and can be picked up free in cafes, delis, farm shops and restaurants all over the North East.